Well, I haven't looked but I think it has been a couple of weeks since my last post. Like most people(parents) I have been very busy lately. As I look back it has been a bunch of little stuf that has been occupying my time...
1. NBA GETTING BACK ON TRACK- Most people know that after having a GREAT football season, my hoops selections have not been great. Now, there is no reason to jump off a house for my clients but most of them are use to really high returns in basketball. We made money in March after a really bad Feb. and April has also been good as we went 8-4 last week. Getting my selections back to a place that my clients and I are use to has been a high priority and has taken some time and extra work. We are now doing good again and ready for a big playoff run.
2. LITTLE LEAGUE BASEBALL- My 10 year old is in his second season of baseball. I tell you this because baseball is one of the hardest sports to actually tell how your kids are progressing.I think he is coming along good. He is hitting the ball, playing first base and most important(for a 10 year old) having fun. It is hard to tell where he stacks up with other kids his age because baseball has the biggest difference between the KIDS that have played a lot and those that are just starting out. Here is the problem. You have 2 kinds of parents/philosophies when it comes to little league baseball. First, you have the parents that for whatever reason, have their 10 year old in their 4th 5th or even 6th season of baseball. These parents,again, for whatever reason have had their kids playing little league baseball for most of their walking life. Although studies show that over 97 % of these kids that start playing baseball before 8 yrs old, will either end up getting hurt due to too much too early OR will simply burn out on the game and not play by the time they are even in high school, their parents are playing 15 to 20 league games and 2 to 10 tournaments / season and dont seem to care what the long term effects might be. The upside to this group is that by playing,sometimes 40 -50 games/year before they are 10, these kids are far advanced over the kids that are playing in their 4th or 5th game ever! And these parents ARE able to relive their unfulfilled youth thru their kids.
The second group are those parents that understand that TOO MUCH BASEBALL AT TOO YOUNG AN AGE LEADS TO INJURIES AND BURNOUT AT A VERY HIGH RATE. Unlike the first group of parents, this group consists of parents that either have ACTUALLY played baseball at a high level. (I have 4 friends that played in the major leagues and all of them agree with this blog opinion. ) or parents that don't care if their kid is ever really good at baseball. Find me a 10 year old baseball team that consists of mostly first or second year kids and I will show you a group of parents that are either REALLY athletic or smarter than most parents that dont care much about baseball. This is the world we live in and it is taking some time for our kids to find their way but they are making strides and due to the good group of parents and the pretty well adjusted kids they are having fun while they are catching on to the game. Don't get me wrong, I have friends, in fact very very good friends that are in the first group. They have spent every weekend for 5 or 6 summers at the baseball fields watching their 6 and 7 year olds try and chase down a title. They know how I feel and we just agree to disagree. It is like being an extreme Republican and having friends that are Obama lovers. You agree to disagree. It is ashamed that most of the parents in group one will spend most of their time now at the baseball fields but never be there when their kids are in high school while group 2 will most likely fill those high school bleachers. I am pretty sure my son is not going to be a great baseball player but again, it is hard to tell just 12 games into his career.
Caytie Ross' 6 year old soccer team is on a 2 game skid. After getting off to a great start , scoring 5 goals in her first game of the season, and winning 3 in a row, we are now just 3-2. Now some of you may wonder why it is OK for my 6 year old to play soccer while I don't agree with 6 year old baseball. Well, their are about 100 reasons I feel this way but I guess the biggest is that I don't want my daughter to be any good at soccer! My hope is the rule about too much too early WILL apply to soccer and she will hate the game before it matters. Have you ever met an actual soccer parent. It is one of the worse lives I can imagine. Soccer is painful to watch, they travel all over to boring cities that even if they were fun, you wouldn't get to do anything fun because you are knee deep in a soccer tournament. They play in all kinds of weather and think about it, if your kid is the best soccer player in the city, state or country you are rewarded, after years of following them around watching 1-0 barn burners, with them signing a contract with a team 1000s of miles away because nobody around here cares about soccer!!!
No thanks!
I am trying to play a little more golf. Most of you know that I have been invited to play in the World Series of Golf May 11-14 in Vegas. I found out this week that their will be 13 episodes of this event shown on CBS this summer. This has brought up the since of urgency on getting my game in shape. I did go out last week and shot 76 with a double so I am not as far behind as I thought. I will be trying to get out more over the next couple of weeks and then peak on May 11 th-14th. At least that is the plan.
